A living room for everyone
Feel like puzzling over a tricky challenge until your head spins – or enjoying a relaxed party game with friends? At this games meet-up venue there’s something for everyone.
Like a living room for more than 60 people: At the games café Playce in Frankfurt, fans gather among potted plants, colourful beanbags and rustic wooden tables. Hundreds of card, dice and board games fill the shelves. Some groups are already setting up their game, others are studying the rules intently. Anyone who is still undecided about what to choose from among the more than 1,500 games can browse the collection for a little longer.
The concept behind the games venue
The idea came to managing partner Katja Eisert during a video-gaming evening with friends: “Why isn’t there somewhere you can spend the whole evening playing together? Have a drink and get a bite to eat in the process, and then just go home again?”. Playce opened its doors in 2023.
Eisert now runs the meeting spot with her business partner. She says there are only about ten such venues in Germany – alongside the venue in Frankfurt, there’s Würfel & Zucker in Hamburg and Meeple und Macchiato in Düsseldorf, for example.
There is a lot of interest: “We’ve never had a single day when nobody came to play.” This evening, too, almost every table is full. Dice roll, playing pieces move across boards, and cards are shuffled.
Games are a unifying element.
An evening of gaming costs guests eight euros. In addition to the large selection of board games, there’s a corner for video games as well as snacks and drinks. Having people from different backgrounds get together is something Eisert cares about deeply: “Games are a unifying element, far removed from cultural, social or religious differences.”
For guests who don’t have German as their first language, there are language-neutral games marked with an orange sticker – including Wizard, which a Spanish-speaking group has just chosen to play.
These games are particularly popular
Which games are currently in vogue? “Party games like Codenames, but also evergreens like The Settlers of Catan – and, I regret to say, Monopoly,” Eisert says with a laugh. “I try to talk people out of playing Monopoly.” She finds the property-dealing game too monotonous. But with 1,500 titles to choose from, it’s not exactly hard to find an alternative.
